


Gethsemane

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [97]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Cancer Arc, F/M, Guns, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, MSR, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-01 21:46:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5222126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf





	Gethsemane

_“What the hell did that guy say to you, that you believe his story?”  
“He said that the men behind this hoax, behind these lies, gave me this disease to make you believe.”_

He stalked out to the car, fuming. How much of a narcissist did this man Kritschgau think he was, anyway? Because it would take some pretty extreme narcissism to swallow wholesale everything that this man was suggesting, that countless events had been orchestrated for Mulder’s benefit alone, that everything he had ever uncovered or witnessed had been planted or arranged specifically for him to find. And this… this suggestion that Scully was sick solely as a means to secure his belief… he could not even consider the notion that it might be true because if it were, it would be too much to bear.

He jerked open the car door and sat heavily, slamming the door shut behind himself, his breath whooshing through his nose as he clenched his jaw and stared out through the windshield.

_It can’t all have been a lie. Everything I’ve seen, the secrets worth killing for, if all of those deaths were in vain…_

It meant that Scully’s death would be in vain as well. And that was unthinkable.

He closed his eyes and gripped the steering wheel until his arms were shaking and his knuckles white. The rage coursed through him, hot and sharp, for the moment masking the sorrow that lurked underneath. He took a deep breath and held it, counting to ten before slowly releasing both it and his hold on the wheel. The sound of Scully getting into the car prompted him to open his eyes again.

“Mulder--”

“I can’t, Scully,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry. But I can’t just disavow everything I’ve spent decades believing. It’s too much.”

“I know this is difficult for you. Believe it or not, I _do_ know what it feels like, to have your faith in something shaken, something you have long held as sacred and immutable.” She shut the door and sighed, looking down at her hands resting in her lap. “But I don’t want to talk about that anymore right now. There’s something else… something that I haven’t told you, that I need for you to know.”

His stomach twisted at her words, a sudden painful contraction, and somehow he already _knew_. The barely concealed tremor in her voice told him everything in an instant, and he found that he couldn’t even draw a breath as he nodded dumbly for her to continue, his pulse pounding in his ears.

“My latest scans and blood tests have detected the presence of cancer cells in my circulatory and lymphatic systems, which means that the tumor has metastasized. Any oncologist will tell you that once cancer migrates beyond the primary tumor site, it is really just a matter of time, and not much of it.”

“Scully…” he croaked.

“I’m not looking for sympathy. This progression was, in many ways, inevitable and something I have known was coming since I was diagnosed.” She lifted her head and turned to look out the side window, unwilling or unable to meet his eyes. “I need you to know this, Mulder, because I need you to understand why it is that, while I sympathize with what you are going through, I cannot share your determination to prove that the story we have been told by Kritschgau is a lie. What he has told us, to me, explains everything, and as I see my own time drawing short…” Her voice wavered, and she paused a minute, swallowing and clearing her throat before continuing. “If the story he’s told us is true, as I believe it is, then I want to spend what time I have left fighting to expose the men who did this to me. I have to believe that they still can be held accountable for their actions, and I will do whatever I can to see that they can’t hurt anyone else like this ever again.”

His hands twitched in his lap, and though he could breathe again, the breaths were short, shallow, wholly inadequate. He swallowed against the dry tightness in his throat, and he barely recognized his own voice when he finally managed to speak.

“How long?”

“I don’t… a matter of weeks, at best.”

Over the course of an evening, he had gone from the elation of having proof in his hands of extraterrestrial life, to the despair of having that proof dashed away, its very value brought into question, to hearing confirmation of the one thing that terrified him more than anything else. If everything he’d ever believed -- about the life elsewhere in the universe, about his sister -- if all of it were a lie, and as his whole world crashed down around his ears, he was not even going to be able to lean on the one person he’d grown to depend on… how could he continue? What in the hell was the point of any of it?

He didn’t even realize he was crying until her hand was on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and he huffed a mirthless laugh.

“ _You’re_ sorry? Jesus, Scully, you are the _last_ person who needs to apologize, about any of this.”

“I’m sorry that you have to shoulder all of this, sorry to add to the weight you are already carrying.”

He reached up and covered her hand with his, looking to see her watching him with eyes as wet as his own. Inexplicably, though it was the furthest thing from appropriate, given the circumstances, he wanted nothing more in that moment than to kiss her. He ached with it, to show her everything he couldn’t find the words to explain, and also, selfish as it was, to simply lose himself in her, just for a little while. To dull the pain, to forget, if even only for a moment.

Gritting his teeth against the impulse to lean across and bring his mouth to hers, he pulled her hand to his lips instead. His eyes slipped closed and he tried, tried to convey everything he felt in that chaste pressing of lips to fingers, knowing that it was both completely inadequate and entirely fitting.

The moment passed, and he released her hand to reach into his pocket and pull out the car keys. They drove back to his apartment in silence, but somewhere along the way he reached over and laced his fingers through hers, and he held her hand, his thumb brushing gently across her knuckles as he drove. When he finally had to let go, to park and shut off the car, his hand felt cold and empty, a bitter portent for the cold emptiness that would surely consume him more thoroughly in a scant few weeks’ time.

He didn't want to get out of the car. Knowing that he would lose her, not just someday but _soon_ , it made him want to preserve every remaining moment they had together.

“Do you want to--”

“I need to go see my mom,” she said, her words overlapping his.

He nodded. “Right. Of course.”

The guilt was sudden and nearly overwhelming. He hadn't _truly_ felt guilty before now for dragging her away from the dinner a few nights earlier. It had all been worth it, he’d thought, just one more in a long line of personal sacrifices made in the service of the greatest truth. Now, though… 

“Are you going to be all right?”

His jaw fell open. Unbelievable. The woman was dying, and still she worried about how _he_ was coping. Even though he was fairly certain he’d never been less all right in his life, he nodded.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mulder.”

She reached for his hand, squeezing it once more before getting out of the car and walking to where she’d parked her own. He watched her go, every instinct screaming to jump up, to run after her, to hold her close and apologize and beg her not to leave him. But he shoved it all down, buried it beneath the guilt, which was only growing and further enveloping him with every passing moment. 

He didn’t deserve her comfort. He had brought all of this pain upon himself, upon them both. She did not owe him a single thing.

With a weight in his stomach, he got out of the car and dragged himself upstairs. When the door closed behind him in his apartment, he stood dully in the dark for a while, remembering the conversation he’d had here just an hour or so earlier. He had been so angry, so full of righteous indignation, but now he felt only numb defeat. And what did it even matter? What did any of it matter when Scully…? 

He rubbed his hands over his face, then walked woodenly to the closet and dug through a box of VHS tapes until he found the one marked “11/20/72 - B.U. NASA Symposium.” It was almost adding insult to injury, sitting and watching a panel of experts discuss at length their hypotheses regarding the existence of extraterrestrial life, watching a tape that so many times before had given him strength and reaffirmed his beliefs. Watching it with his new knowledge, of the truth he was slowly coming to accept, would be a form of self-flagellation.

He put the tape in the VCR and crossed back to the couch, pulling his service weapon from its holster and pausing as he reached out to set it on the table. He felt the weight of it in his hand, considered how easy it would be to make all of his pain just stop. He didn’t _have_ to watch Scully die. He didn’t _have_ to see his life’s work debunked, to know with absolute certainty that he had been nothing more than a pawn in some sadistic game.

The temptation was real, but once again, the guilt surged and overwhelmed it. There was absolutely no way he could do that to Scully. Not a chance. This pain was his cross to bear, and he would not take the coward’s way out, leaving her alone at the end. He respected her too much to do that to her. More than just respected, he...

He set the gun down, sat on the couch, and pressed play.


End file.
